I'm 5ft 10in. 32 years old. 255lbs, obese. I pulled my left groin muscle today while doing a 300 lbs squat, high bar. I did 5 reps at 280 lbs, I never thought 300 lbs would hurt me. Luckily there were safety bars. I felt the muscle tore/pulled but I'm not sure of the seriousness of the injury (Grade 1/2/3). Hopefully no surgery required, maybe I need to see an orthopedist to make sure.

It's painful when I spread my left leg away from my groin, so I have a resistance band wrapped around my hips to keep the two legs close together so I can walk with less pain. I will be walking with a walking stick as I recover.

I attribute this injury to a wide feet position because I'm obese so I have big belly, hard to squat with shoulder width feet position so I do mostly sumo squats. Maybe I have bad squat technique too, I need to research more, get elitefts DVDs, etc.

I heard I won't be able to go to the gym for 1-2 months and I'm afraid of gaining more weight because I'm trying to lose weight. Target goal is 220 pounds.

I pulled my groin 2-3 months ago playing basketball. It was pretty bad granted I never saw a doctor. It was not a 2 week recovery. More like 2 months. Even today, I still feel it. As for lifting weights, I couldn't even do upper body at the beginning. The act of getting on and off the bench hurt. I couldn't do anything involving my core. Even getting in and out of bed was a careful task.

I dropped from 230 to about 205 in 18 months on my no rush weight loss plan before my injury. Over the past 3 months or so, exercise has become rare simply because I have since had a shoulder injury from falling awkwardly in hockey and I am currently nursing a foot injury caused by god knows what.

My eating habits have gone to crap over the past few months. That much I know.

I've probably added a few pounds. At my best, with water weight I was probably right at 205. Today I am at 209. If I go on a diet with exercise for a week, I'd be at 202. In a month, I'd be below I was when all this crap started.

Tomorrow my wife said she was going to start exercising. She wants to start running to do our towns 5K in 12 months. I think my injuries are healed to the point where i can start lifting and running again. I have 2 months to hit this years goal of 195 pounds. I can do it but time is ticking.

Point of all this: My diet went to crap and the way I have been eating, I don't know how I did not gain 10 pounds. I gained about 3 or 4 though. Just keep your diet in check and you'll be fine.

Give it some time - work on light exercises for your legs and work hard on upper body. I'd say come back to body weight squats (even partial range of motion squats) in 1-2 weeks. It should be slightly uncomfortable but shouldnt actually hurt.

Also, this is the risk you run with a wide stance. You also likely do that due to reduced hip ROM so perhaps some hip stretching is in order. Fix your squat. The suggestion of a more narrow squat is to avoid stressing your passive tissues so much - i.e. your adductors (groin), hip capsule, etc. You don't have to squat with your feet shoulder width apart, but you should squat more arrow than sumo. A few inches outside shoulder width is appropriate, with toes turned very slightly outward (5-15 degrees).

You'll be fine if you keep active with the upper body stuff and, most importantly, your diet.

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I am a doctor of physical therapy. Information I provide is based on subjective report alone. This frequently results in speculation and, as a result, may not always be accurate. Thus I am not liable for any action taken based on information provided.

Give it some time - work on light exercises for your legs and work hard on upper body. I'd say come back to body weight squats (even partial range of motion squats) in 1-2 weeks. It should be slightly uncomfortable but shouldnt actually hurt.

Just be careful with letting it get out of hand : P

(I really just wanted to post this picture) ^.^

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The large print giveths and the small print taketh away.

I read up on that picture - turns out the guy actually had some sort of war injury. I think he was an American soldier and had previously not been walking due to his injury. He did all he could to maintain upper body strength until he could actually do stuff. So... in essence, those are pathologically atrophied legs in a person who had extreme circumstances. You're not gonna get those just by skipping a leg workout for 1-2 weeks (especially considering if you didn't exercise for years prior to that).

__________________
I am a doctor of physical therapy. Information I provide is based on subjective report alone. This frequently results in speculation and, as a result, may not always be accurate. Thus I am not liable for any action taken based on information provided.

__________________
I am a doctor of physical therapy. Information I provide is based on subjective report alone. This frequently results in speculation and, as a result, may not always be accurate. Thus I am not liable for any action taken based on information provided.

Give it some time - work on light exercises for your legs and work hard on upper body. I'd say come back to body weight squats (even partial range of motion squats) in 1-2 weeks. It should be slightly uncomfortable but shouldnt actually hurt.

Also, this is the risk you run with a wide stance. You also likely do that due to reduced hip ROM so perhaps some hip stretching is in order. Fix your squat. The suggestion of a more narrow squat is to avoid stressing your passive tissues so much - i.e. your adductors (groin), hip capsule, etc. You don't have to squat with your feet shoulder width apart, but you should squat more arrow than sumo. A few inches outside shoulder width is appropriate, with toes turned very slightly outward (5-15 degrees).

You'll be fine if you keep active with the upper body stuff and, most importantly, your diet.

Thanks for the advice. I will do a narrower squat with lighter weights and minimum 5 reps per set. I'm gonna learn how to do box squat too since it will teach me the right way to squat using your butt/glutes power.